


Sun

by saltylikecrait



Series: Follows Soft the Sun [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Prince Finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 05:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14230719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltylikecrait/pseuds/saltylikecrait
Summary: Their days aren’t always good.





	Sun

Their days aren’t always good.

“Shh... Rey, it’s okay. I got you.”

They are behind what is called the Garden House, where the gardeners store their supplies and keep their lunches. It is not a large building, but it is new building with plenty of windows and air conditioning. It’s been furnished well enough for the gardeners to take breaks and rest.

Finn is holding Rey in his arms as he leans against the back of the tan building and rocks her slightly. She is sobbing.

Earlier in the day, Finn was enjoying a visit from his friend, Captain Poe Dameron of the New Republic Defense Fleet. They had been playfully arguing on what planet’s caf was better when Finn felt a chill race up his spine.

He knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what, so he asked Poe and his partner droid, BB-8 to take a walk with him.

Poe had asked him when he would get to finally meet Rey. He had not gotten to visit Duuna in almost a half a standard year, but he and Finn stayed in touch and he had noted the difference in his friend’s writing after Rey showed up. His messages just seemed... happier.

The three of them had come across a group of gardeners trying to lift a downed trellis. It looked like some vines were damaged, but Finn was just glad that no one was under it when it fell.

Then Poe pointed out the chunk of stone that looked like it had been blasted out. A quick glance to the stone wall around the perimeter of the palace grounds confirmed to them that was where the chunk came from.

“What happened?” Finn asked. He was a little concerned that trouble might be around.

The gardeners said they weren’t sure what happened. One moment, they were all putting up a team effort to trim the higher vines of the trellis, the next, the wall exploded and the trellis came down.

But one gardener was suspicious. He had told them he saw Rey running away after the blast. She had been helping with the vines too.

“Which way did she go?”

He pointed toward the Garden House. That was where Finn, Poe, and BB-8 started their search.

It didn’t take long to find her. Within a couple of minutes of their search, they heard someone crying and followed the sound. Rey was curled up and her back moved up and down with her sobs.

As Finn approached her, Poe did not follow, and he told BB-8 to stay with him.

“Rey?” Finn called to her softly, which is how they got to their present situation.

He rubs her back gently, trying to soothe her as she cries into his shoulder.

“Talk to me. Please, Rey.”

And then she takes a deep breath and says, “It was me. I tried to hurt them. I _almost_ hurt them.”

It is shocking to hear her say that. Finn knows that Rey has a lot of anger in her - she has so many reasons to - but she has never once taken her anger out on another.

“I heard them talking. About me. About us,” she explains. “And I got angry.”

“What did they say?”

She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her red shirt - part of the gardener uniform. “They called me scavenger trash. That I didn’t belong here, or with you.”

“And what did you do?”

“I don’t know!” she insists, she is shaking now. “I felt angry and then the wall blasted apart and the trellis fell. I don’t know what I did, but I know it was because of me.”

And suddenly, everything clicks. Rey is Force-sensitive but is untrained. From the sound of it, Rey might have always had some awareness of the Force and her abilities on Jakku – her intuition on where to find more valuable scraps seemed to be enhanced – but she never had full control over it. It wasn’t uncommon for a child to realize their abilities through a burst of anger or any other strong emotion either.

Finn had unfortunately become aware of his abilities as a teen after his best friend had died. When he had gotten the news of Slip’s death, he had walked silently up to his bedroom and with a flick of his wrist, closed the blinds of his window. He was so absorbed in his depression he didn’t realize what he had done until a few days later.

The Force can be like a sun. It can be warm and welcoming, providing hope and light in the darkest of times. But it can be overpowering and overwhelming, too, almost burning and blinding.

To control the Force is to seek your own center, the source of that power. For many, this makes them self-sufficient, brilliant, and unashamed of their talents. For others, it means facing their darkest fears and warping themselves into something dreadful that they never were before.

It was never more clear that Rey feared her abilities. The Force, and specifically what she could do with it, terrified her. Perhaps that was part of the reason she didn’t want to train with Master Skywalker.

Master Skywalker would be the best person to handle this, Finn thinks. He knows what it’s like to be older when Force-sensitivity is discovered. Surely he would have wisdom to pass to Rey. He even hinted to Finn at their last meeting that he was a little worried for Rey, telling Finn that there was something in her abilities that made him uneasy, but assured Finn that she wasn’t at risk of turning to the dark side. She has her moments, but Rey always ends up doing the right thing and does her best to avoid hurting others. She’s not perfect, but she is strongly installed in the light.

“Rey,” he said, “they had no right to say that to you. Nothing they said about you is true. But I’m worried about you. Let’s contact Master Skywalker. He can-“

“No,” Rey said with finality.

“But Rey, you need help.”

She pulled away from him and looked at him in the eyes. Her own eyes – green with flecks of brown, reminding Finn so much of the plants she cares for – were red and puffy.

“I don’t want _this,_ Finn,” she told him, holding up her hands like they were the source of all her problems. “I hoped that if I ignored it, it would go away.”

“The Force never goes away,” he explained. “It’s a part of all of us.”

“I know that,” Rey huffed. “But I still don’t want this.”

He thought for a moment. Rey could be immensely stubborn – stupidly so, at times – and she trusted few people still. He doubted that she would even let him try to help her, not that Finn felt like he was competent enough for that task. It was really best to leave the Force stuff to the professionals.

She reminded him of her adopted mother who also possessed a strong ability in the Force but chose not to follow the path of the Jedi. Yes, Leia might know what to do. At least Rey could trust her to be honest and not mention the problem to her brother.

“Would you talk to Senator Organa, then?” he asked. He was almost pleading with her now.

Rey paused for a moment, thinking, and then nodded her head silently. She wiped her tears away before standing up. “I need to go back,” she told him.

He followed her lead and kissed her gently on the forehead before they parted ways. When he looked around, he couldn’t find Poe or BB-8 anywhere.

“Poe?” he called out.

A rustling in a group of tall bushes told him that his friends were about to emerge. Poe hobbled out of his hiding spot with no grace to his name and BB-8 rolled out from a gap. “Did she see us?” Poe whispered, a little fearful.

“No… but, err… why were you guys hiding in a bush?”

Poe looked a little sheepish, and a blush reddened his face. “I didn’t think it would be good to meet her like that,” he admitted. “I’ll meet her tonight. Hopefully, she’ll be feeling better by then.”

Finn smiled and headed back to the palace. “There should be cake there,” he thought out loud. “Offer her a slice and tell her all about X-wings. You’ll be friends before the night is out.” He looked down at BB-8. “And I know she’ll just love you, Beebee! She adores droids!”

The orange and white BB unit wobbled excitedly.

Poe snorted and shook his head. “I’ll take your word for it.”


End file.
